Precarity is a newly commissioned, three-channel video work by John Akomfrah, a pioneer in film and video art since the 1980s and 2017 winner of the UK’s esteemed Artes Mundi Prize. Precarity is his second, multi-media video work in a four-part series of inquiry and reflection into enigmatic lives projected against their historical backdrops. It tells the story of the history and legacy of Buddy Bolden, the commonly-acknowledged founder of jazz in New Orleans whose life is shrouded in mystery, captured through the use of both documentary material and imagery, and reconstructed dramatic scenes. Presented as a triptych, Precarity includes simultaneous experimental narratives about Bolden, American culture, and the development of jazz around the themes of memory and the dynamic environment of New Orleans as a creative force.

Sound Design & Ambient Score

Sound Mix: Roland Heap

Studio: Sound Disposition, London

Edited by Lara Garcia Reyne

Produced by Smoking Dogs Films, London

It is currently showing at Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans as a part of Prospect No. 4